by Rae, M. C.
She made no reply, save for a slight bow of her head as Owos lowered the crown and placed it atop her raven tresses.
“Very well, Empress of Andresium. Tallis, rise and greet your subjects.”
Wherein one might have expected reverence, or perhaps even pride, only fear mixed with contempt filled their features and greeted her as she looked up at the assemblage of the immortals. The only exception was Juno, whose eyes were soft, her countenance suggesting sympathy and perhaps, foreboding.
Tallis spoke over her shoulder to Owos. “So I am Empress?”
He genuflected. “You are, milady.”
“And so my word is law?”
He hesitated, stuttering an answer. “Y-y-yes, my Empress.” Boldness was not a characteristic associated widely with the Loren, and no doubt, no matter her bluster with them in private, they had expected her public persona to remain passive.
“Then I wish to name my co-regent.”
Many years had she spent denying offers of power, passing by accolades thrown at her from every direction. The fear was always there with her, though she would have been hard pressed to admit it, that such triumphs and attempts at flattery were given in the desire to appease her. She knew how to kill, to do so with the utterance of one word, and the eventual end of the immortal race had been laid at her dispassionate feet. In the face of such knowledge, would any oppose her and not fear for their lives? Being that she was a stoic, how could they gather any perception of her disposition?
The Gods, however, had kept close watch on the Loren, had known all her history, and possessed the one tool they could use against her: the truth of her making, both in flesh and into eternity. Wrongly, they had attributed to her one quality they believed universal: a sense of selfish self-preservation.
This was her moment. Tallis understood that, if ever she were to stand against their will, if ever she were to challenge the fate ascribed to her, the task must be undertaken now at the onset. The immortals feared her, and that fear would serve the Gods in whatever plan they had for which her coronation had been orchestrated. They would need that fear intact to control the immortals through her. In front of the assemblage now, they would seek to maintain that reverence of her ability to strike even them down at her will. Therefore, they sought to appease her request.
Except that Graffin was not to be so easily outmaneuvered. “To name a co-regent, Empress, you would have to wed.”
Her words were soft, so that the others would not hear. “I have an intended.”
Graffin matched her in volume. “Surely, you don’t mean the mortal.”
“Surely, I do.”
“Sadly for you, Tallis,” remarked Owos, the most curious and assured smirk hatching onto his face, “we will not allow it.”
“I will permit you no say,” Tallis declared, firmly standing her ground. “Deal with the consequence of making the gilteren mortal. As a mortal, I am obligated to have a heart, and my heart wants Tarameen. I know this as I know the sun and the moon’s path, as I know the place and purpose of every star in the heavens, as I know that I could not endure without him.”
His lips quivered, redness filled his cheeks. The words, however, died on his lips. But as Owos began to recover and shape his retort, it was another’s voice, ghastly and haunting that reverberated in an echo of Tallis’s memories, that spoke from the back of the assemblage.
“Does she not recognize my claim upon her, then?”
Ghosts did not exist. Tallis knew this intimately, knew that the unbound soul upon death slipped into another incarnation or split across many spectrums, smoothing out the edges of creation. Worse, the bound soul, through the working of the magic which tied it to another’s, allowed for the corporeal shell to reform, given time and if its other half endured. She wished it were not so. At this moment, she wished the life of this man, this fiend who had lurked in the shadows, awaiting an opportunity to pounce, could be wiped from existence.
Shahlamin, once King of Solas, slithered past a wall of contorted and sneering faces, as though a foul stench had permeated the room. They parted for him, not out of reverence, but because they feared making contact could sully their own persons. On the contrary, however, Shahlamin looked as fresh and as whole as the day, centuries ago, when Tallis had slain him. Slain his mortal body, at least.
Shahlamin was no fool. He did not buy Tallis from the court of the king of Lorelei by chance, and with the intent merely to regift her to the Empress’s service. No, he had enchanted her, seduced her with promises of freedom and power, and twisted her thoughts. Debased, but not unwise, Shahlamin understood how to manipulate her sense of isolation and abandonment, as well as play to her sympathies. His powers were great, and his knowledge of the ancient language expansive. He used them both to seduce first Tallis’s mind, then her heart. Thinking he loved her too – for, after all, had he not purchased her from her bondage to the royal house of Lorelei and brought her to Solas? She served as his willing and capable minion, an interloper into Andresa’s tightest circle of servants. He had made himself one with her, and bound their souls before Tallis had ever set foot in Aurora’s halls and regained recollection of who—and what—she truly was. It was under his influence that Tallis had used her magic to endear the Empress to her. And it was at his command, when he believed the hour was right, that she usurped death and slew the Empress with her own hand.
Sadly, because of the bond, her fate was his fate. She could rend his soul from flesh, but until that bond was broken by her own death, he could always resurrect into being. He could always find his way back to her. He could always rise again in an attempt to seize power. He could always use one to get the other.
At last, he spoke, his tone full of jests and barbs. “Surely you don’t mean to say, Empress, that you plan to wed another, when I, your devoted betrothed, am standing before you?”
If Tallis had any last stretch of hope that the Gods might prove benevolent, it evaporated the moment that they stepped forward and embraced Shahlamin, as though he were a long, lost brother.
Swallowing air, she fought to maintain her stoic refrain. “You are not my betrothed.”
His teeth gleamed when he snarled, his black eyes just as deep and consuming as they had always been. “But you are mine.” A long, fleshy finger pointed at her accusingly. “Did you not make a vow to me unto death? Did you not give me promise of your heart and leave of your body? And as we are bound, I cannot die in whole, and therefore your vow still stands.”
Owos stepped forward, jovial. “You desired a co-regent, Empress? Look at this man, your betrothed, as our blessed choice to rule at your side.”
In the manner of ice, long frozen, exposed suddenly to a flash of intense heat, Tallis’s resolve cracked, allowing her anger to boil up through the cracks of her indifference. “If all that binds us is life, then I will welcome death before I would allow my hand to be taken in yours, before I allow my throne to become your seat.”
At this, Shahlamin gleamed, as though he had welcomed the offer. “Then say the word that would end your life, Tallis. Say it now, and let me know it, that I might strike you down. In your death, give me the gift of that knowledge.” He waited, his eyes daring her to talk. When she only silently burned, his face grew long in disappointment. “Pity. Well, then, I guess we remain promised to one another. And like a good suitor, I have brought my intended…” He snapped his fingers over his shoulder, the action beckoning the scurrying approach of two men bearing the handles of a gilded box in their grasps. They set it on the floor before Tallis, and even the Gods drew back with dread. “…a present.”
Her devolution from untouchable to overwrought was complete. Tallis screamed when the bloodshot eyes of Tarameen’s severed head met her own. His mouth was frozen in a dying scream, a cry for help that she could never answer. Iron bars that proved to be arms encircled her as she collapsed. A moment later, she made out streams of silver falling across her face, soaking up her tears.
“You never
said you would kill him, Shahlamin!”
Tarameen’s death was gut-wrenching, but Juno’s words and the revelation inherent in them, ripped at the shards of her soul.
“She can save him! All she need do is but speak the word for life, and he will resurrect.”
So, that is what he is after, Tallis realized as she heard Shahlamin’s retort. It was not enough that in killing him, she had let him know the word which rendered the act. Now he wished to have the ability to spark life as well.
Knowledge, corrupted.
As the once-princess of Paradism and Tallis’s despised once-intended bickered over promises dishonored, as Tallis realized that she had but two options before her, both dripping with deadly consequence, as the prophecy told once by ancients, long dead and names forgotten— she saw time’s wings spreading to the horizon.
This was the Gods’ plan, had always been their plan. Shahlamin had despised the Empress; in her mortal days, he made no secret of it. As the King of Solas, and Solas being the seat of the imperial throne, he was a sovereign usurped of his governed province. The Gods must have brewed this poison long ago. She had been their tool, both in birth, then in life, and so would be in her death—if now she chose to die. And having her soul bound to Shahlamin, why would she not choose to die? She could kill him now, but their union of souls would again create a bridge, which would allow his being to cross back over. Besides, death would come to her now only by uttering that word which must be kept from the Gods at any cost. It was terrible enough that Shahlamin knew it, but he would not dare utter it and chance that knowledge becoming any less exclusive, of this she was certain. The only way to undo the cloak of immortality was the utterance of the twin word which had caused it to fall about her.
The only thing tying her heart to this world, Tarameen, was gone.
“You told me not to be afraid, that I was to go on a great journey, and though I’d face dangers and challenges, I shouldn’t be scared. You would come to find me.”
The Systerian’s words echoed in her memories. She could not speak the word to resurrect him now; letting slip that knowledge to those in her presence would be far too costly. If she could survive, however, could not she recall him back? Yes, but in a matter of time, Shahlamin would return as well. He would not stop until the empire and the power of life and death itself, were his.
Unless she hid herself away. If she broke all bonds, destroyed this lot, and took the secret along with her to the far reaches of the empire where none would ever find her, then there was hope.
The plan then was made. All that remained was doing the necessary.
Juno was on her feet now, arguing with Shahlamin about their “understanding.” Tallis gathered herself up from the heap on the floor. Hair wet with her tears clung to the side of her face. The others paid no attention to her as she fell down to the side of the box, and looked into the lifeless eyes of her beloved. She mouthed her regrets.
A deep breath in, she closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer.
Juno and Shahlamin had barely time to turn when they discovered Tallis had arisen, arms spread wide, and felt her intent settle across the room like a layer of hot ash. The sacred and mysterious word sounded so plain when it hit their ears, so simple to have such a horrific retribution of fate. She saw Shahlamin’s lips curl into a smile before his body turned to powder, joining the heaps scattered about the room.
“Till next time, my love,” he managed to utter with his dying breath.
It was a promise. He would resurrect, and when he was again flesh and his memories were there, he would seek her out. This scenario would play again and again until she left this world once more.
If, when that someday came, that was he could find her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.C. Rae is a multi-genre writer, who also publishes as Killian McRae. Born and raised in rural Michigan, she later attended the University of Michigan where she took a tour of majors, making stops in Operatic Performance, International Business, and Elementary Education before finally obtaining a degree in Near Eastern history.
She is currently a member of the Stanford Writing program, as well as a PRO member of the Romance Writers of America.
M.C. lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband, two children, and a tiny dog who thinks he’s a cat.
OTHER TITLES (WRITTEN AS KILLIAN McRAE):
12.21.21
A Love by Any Measure